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NHBPM – Why Healthcare Companies Should Use Social Media

Welcome. This post is part of the WEGO Health National Health Blog Post Month (NHBPM) challenge for November, 2012.

Healthcare companies need social media. They need to stop being a company or corporation that appears to operate behind closed doors. We want information – straightforward, useful information. If we are diagnosed with a chronic illness, we want all the information we can get so that we can be proactive in our healthcare, not reactive. Our doctors only have a certain amount of time to see us, we want that time spent as productive as possible.

Social media would also allow healthcare companies to interact with the public. We are a wealth of information on the illnesses we live with. We are the people who would be using their products and services and we are the people who can make their products and services better. And doctors using these sites would gain a better understanding of how chronic illnesses affect us.

If healthcare companies don’t use social media, or use it improperly, they run the risk of alienating the very people they are supposed to help. If the media or other social networks start talking about the poor relations a company has with its customers or potential customers, the company may never recover from the bad press. A social media department, and the image and information that department presents to the public, is just as important as any other department. It may not be tangible like the assets on a balance sheet, but it is just as important.